VOL. XLIV, No. 4
WASHINGTON
OCTOBER, 1923
THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
An American Art That Has Revolutionized Methods
in Manufacturing and Transformed
Transportation
BY WILLIAM JOSEPH SHOWALTER
AUTHOR OF "THE PANAMA CANAL,"
"How THE WORLD IS FED,"
"INDUSTRY'S GREATEST ASSE---STEEIx,"
"COAL-ALLY OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY,"
"AMERICA'S AMAZING RAILWAY TRAFFIC,"
ETC.,
IN THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
The following article presents a careful survey of the economic consequences
of the development of the motor,vehicle and a layman's impressions of the highly
technical automobile manufacturing industry. The latter were gained during
months of observation and inspection in the largest automobile factories in America,
under the guidance of automotive engineers and manufacturing superintendents.
THE EDITOR.
W ITH thirteen million motor
cars and trucks now running on
the roads of the United States,
and with the annual demand for new ones
in excess of three millions, America is
both literally and figuratively "stepping
on the gas" in the making of transporta
tion history.
A quarter of a century has brought a
development in the automobile industry
that has outrun the dreamers, confounded
the prophets, and amazed the world.
In 1898 there was one car in operation
for every eighteen thousand people, each
of them a hybrid creation secured by
crossing a bicycle with a buggy, and in
stalling in the product a noisy, sputtering
little engine that startled the people in the
streets and sent the horses on the high
ways into panic (see pages 348 and 349).
To-day there is one motor vehicle to
every eight people, and the worst of them
is a marvel of silence and service as com-
pared with the best of its early prede
cessors.
Thirteen million motor cars! Who can
visualize them! Five for every freight
and passenger car on all the railroads of
the United States! Enough to carry half
the people of America in a single caravan!
The Lincoln Highway, from the banks
of the Hudson to the Golden Gate, is
3,305 miles long. To put them all on that
highway, even in traffic-jam formation,
would require that it be widened so that
fifteen cars could stand abreast!
ROUND TRIP TO THE SUN EVERY 21 HOURS
The service they render is proportion
ately large. Assuming that the average
car is operated only ten months in a year
and runs only twenty miles a day, their
aggregate travel amounts to seventy
eight billion miles annually.
Such a mileage figure being so vast, we
might conclude that ten months a year
NATIONAL
MAGAZnIIH
COPYRIGHT.1923. BY NATIONALGEOGRAPHICSOCIETY.WASHINGTON.D. C.. IN THE UNITED STATESANDGREAT BRITAIN